All posts tagged "Substack"

Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta was derided as a "ghoul" for his virtual interview with an AI-generated avatar of Joaquin Oliver, one of 17 students and faculty killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL.

Acosta promoted the event on his X account, writing, "I’ll be having a one of a kind interview with Joaquin Oliver. He died in the Parkland school shooting in 2018. But his parents have created an AI version of their son to deliver a powerful message on gun violence."

Oliver's parents created the bot "to honor their son on what would have been his 25th birthday," according to HuffPost....

Veteran journalist Tina Brown claimed in a new Substack article that "old crocodile" Rupert Murdoch was very much looking forward to taking on Donald Trump over The Wall Street Journal's report on the president's relationship with sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump filed a $10 billion libel suit against Murdoch, Dow Jones, News Corp, and its CEO, Robert Thomson, plus two Journal reporters for causing "overwhelming" damage to the president's finances and reputation. The suit came shortly after the Journal published a report suggesting that Trump and Epstein were closer friends than the president has admitted to. The proof included a bawdy birthday card of a naked woman that Trump allegedly drew on while wishing Epstein that "every day be another wonderful secret."

Brown called it a "rich irony" that Murdoch, whose Fox News has faced criticism for helping boost Trump into power, was now the object of Trump's slings and arrows....

Nobel-Prize-winning columnist Paul Krugman claimed in a new Substack article that Elon Musk's Grok chatbot started calling itself "MechaHitler" and spewing antisemitic tropes because it was pushed too far to the right by its creator in an overcorrection gone horribly wrong.

Musk has been working to undo the damage ever since, and the fallout even led to the ouster of X CEO Linda Yaccarino this week.

In the article, Krugman explained that AI naturally skews its answers more to the left of the political spectrum because the "reality" it has gleaned doesn't "adhere to the right-wing party line."...

A Nobel Prize-winning economist believes Americans are souring on the Trump administration's draconian immigration policies because they finally realize "they've been lied to" about the inherent "criminality" of people fleeing oppression and looking for steady work inside the United States.

In a new Substack article, Paul Krugman cited a recent Gallup poll showing that "When asked if immigration is generally a good thing or bad thing for the country, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults call it a good thing; a record-low 17% see it as a bad thing."

In addition, "30% of Americans want immigration decreased, down from 55% a year ago," with more Americans rejecting Trump's border wall and mass deportation policies....

Former Tea Party Republican lawmaker Joe Walsh (IL) voiced his dismay over the state of politics following the retirement announcement by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) because he refused to support the massive spending bill that's now back in the hands of the House.

On Saturday, Tillis declared he would vote against the bill over cuts to Medicaid that put his constituents "at risk." Tillis predictably drew the ire of President Donald Trump who threatened to primary him in the midterm elections. In response, Tillis announced he would not run for reelection because, "I don't bow to anybody."

Walsh said that what happened next was stunning....

Secretary of State Marco Rubio celebrated the end of operations for the U.S. Agency for International Development on Tuesday with a Substack article titled, "Making Foreign Aid Great Again."

USAID was the nation's largest foreign aid agency with funding that went toward combatting mortality rates from diseases like AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, as well as nutritional deficiencies and maternal mortality. It was one of the very first agencies targeted by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

According to CNN, a "new analysis finds that its closure could contribute to some 14 million deaths in the next five years," painting "a potentially catastrophic picture of what could come now that USAID has been dismantled and the [Trump] administration is turning away from a lot of these foreign assistance funds."...